In and Out
by ilovemoony73
Summary: Rose trying to cope in Pete's World, before she meets the Doctor at Bad Wolf Bay.


_Oh, god, start on your toes. You're going to break an ankle, easy on the ankles; god you haven't done this in forever. Okay, now ease into it— not too fast, slow up a bit._

These shoes aren't horribly stiff and they're almost comfortable with the thick socks, but the wind is biting into the skin on my arms and legs and I'm waiting for the movement to warm me up. I'm hardly wearing anything and I'm out of my mind for going out like this, but I want it this way—the laces are restraint enough, I don't want anything else clinging onto me and holding me down and _oh my god breathe Rose, breathe. You have to breathe._

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

Good. Good. I can handle this, if I breathe like this I can just keep going and going and never look back. Keep breathing steady and the blood will flow normally from heart to artery to vein to heart to artery and so on and so forth and my head will stay clear and if I can focus on that cycle I won't even have to think about anything else.

I pull the sharp air in slowly then draw it back out to the rhythm of my trainers slamming on the pavement. In my mind I'm following the trail that the oxygen is traveling and it shoots through to the front of my mind that the trail includes just one heart and I've known it all along but it means something now. The thought brings a pang to my chest and my eyes sting—it should be making me cry, it has many times before, but I can't. I'm not particularly fond of crying, no, but it's a way to get the emotions out there, to unlock them. And they've just been building up for weeks and weeks and I've been expecting to break down one day, falling down and sobbing and not being able to control myself as everything that's been weighing down my heart comes flooding out, but I haven't.

If my body won't allow my brain to cry (or perhaps the other way around?), I shall exhaust them both until they are left with no choice but to open the gates. That's what made me run.

I try to turn my thoughts off because it feels like I've been going forever but I'm no more than a couple of hundred meters away from the gate to the estate because my mind is running so much faster than my legs. I focus on my breathing.

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

I listen to the pull and release, the way they jump with each footfall. It's strange that even with the sluggish pace I've adopted breathing is so much harder than normal. Time is moving different in motion; it's so much slower. My chest begins to hurt and I feel like I'm gasping.

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

The muscle at the top of my calves is burning and my chest is tight. _Forget about your breathing! Forget about your steps and your breaths and the oxygen and your heart. It's easier if you think about something else._

At which point I'm not sure if I'm running to forget, or running to remember.

I rack through my brain for something to think of to distract me. Mum, Dad, Mickey; all mundane, non-controversial topics now that most of the dust has settled. My mind keeps drifting back to how hard it feels to breathe. Torchwood—can't say I'm exactly bored at work. I follow that train of thought through all the work I've done in the past six months. I remember the good I've done, the things I've contributed. I think about when I got the job too. And I think about how I got the job.

I think about how I got here, and now I can't stop it. I think about Torchwood in _my_ world and I think about the Daleks and the Cybermen and the Doctor and I've blocked this all out, it's just supposed to be good memories now but in my head I see dad drape the manipulator over my neck and hit the button and the Doctor flashes before my eyes and he's _gone_ and _you're going to pass out you need to stop right now oh god oh no please please please stop_.

I slow to a walk for half a step before I find myself down on the grass. My head is pulled down to my knees and at first it feels like I'm heaving for breath but really I'm just heaving, my stomach trying to expel something that isn't there as the images that make me ill paint the back of my eyelids. When the spasm in my throat stops I hear a horrible choked nose erupt from my chest and don't realize until I've made the sound over and over again that I'm crying. Really, actually crying. The tears are falling onto my legs as cradle my head in my arms and deflate into the ground.

I don't want these pictures in my head; I don't want the bad memories. I only want the good. That's what I've been doing, removing the bad. But—the bad release the emotions. The bad open the gates. I let my last day with him play out in my mind, sobbing into my arms on a damp patch of grass.

As it plays over and over again, I regain control of myself.

In through the nose, out through the mouth.

I stop gasping and hiccoughing and take the pictures of the Doctor on my last day with him and pull them out of that memory and look at them on their own. I see him, and I hear him. I remember him; I allow myself to remove the filter I've had up. _Very good, Rose. See, this is coping. You've got to come to terms with what happened. You've had your time to mourn; now you must take what you've got left and get on with it._

I listen to my own voice in my head. I pull myself up and wipe the tears off my face, brush the grass off my legs and start the unbelievably short walk back to the estate with my head up and the Doctor's laugh ringing in my ears, his smile in my mind.

That night, I begin to hear whispers in my sleep.

I'm afraid it's not much. It was much nicer in theory than in practice, I suppose. An attempt to be more symbolic and literary and also to include motion with stream of consciousness. Also I feel like running's a bit like a walk in the rain or a good cry—helps to clear things up. Inspired by the quote "if you can't cry, then run until your lungs burst, or write until you feel something." Lastly, I'm dreadfully sorry if this is a piece of garbage, I'm just experimenting with Rose here. But as always, I own nothing and thank you for reading. :)


End file.
